The Coldstone

by Patricia Wentworth

  He stumbled on to his feet, and he looked right past Mrs. Bowyer with those tormented eyes.

  “Oh, my God! What have I done?” His voice sank groaning to a whisper. “Susan—what have I done? They’ll be together—it doesn’t hurt them. Susan, I haven’t killed you—I’ve killed myself! Susan!”

  Old Susan Bowyer took the shock of his words with a steady front, but inwardly they were like blades of ice cutting into her. She thought the man was mad, and she thought that he had killed Susan. If his words meant anything, they meant that. With a deadly cold at her heart she went up to him and put a hand upon his arm.

  “Where’s my maid?”

  Garry O’Connell stared at her. He was in one dream, and she was in another. His brain reeled with the distance between his dream and that of any other living soul. He was alone. He had killed Susan.

  Mrs. Bowyer shook him slightly.

  “What ha’ you done with Susan?”

  “I’ve killed her,” said Garry O’Connell.

  Mrs. Bowyer’s hand tightened on his arm. She did not believe him, but just to hear it said was like the clap of thunder that leaves a man dazed and silly. She said, in a loud, shaking voice,

  “You ha’ not!”

  “I’ve killed her,” said Garry O’Connell. “She’s dead and buried, and a stone over her head.” He broke into a terrible laugh. “The stone that Merlin blessed!”

  “An’ I saw it just so clear as I ever see anything in all my born days—just so clear as I ever see anything. An’ if it wasn’t the Lord a-showing it to me, who was it? That’s what I’d like to know. I see it in the twinkle of an eye.” This was Mrs. Bowyer afterwards. At the time she held Garry O’Connell firmly by the arm, looked into his wild eyes with a dark, steady gaze, and said, “Don’t you talk nonsense, my lad!”

  Something penetrated the dream. Perhaps it was the tone of brisk authority, perhaps it was the courage and faith behind the tone. He trembled under her hand and repeated,

  “She’s under the Stone.”

  “Then we’ll get her out.”

  Garry dropped his voice to a dreadful whisper.

  “The treasure’s there—Philip Colstone’s treasure—and two dead Colstones to guard it.”

  The hand on his arm was clenched.

  “What ha’ you done with them?”

  He laughed again and wrenched away from her.

  “I? Nothing—nothing at all. But—there’s no air. The stone is shut, and there’s no air.” With the last word his voice rose into a scream.

  He snatched up the lamp, crossed the cellar running, and disappeared through the open door at the end. Mrs. Bowyer followed the light which swung and wavered ahead of her. In all her years she had never seen the opening of the low, heavy door. Now it stood wide. The lantern light went dancing along the passage behind it and down into a vaulted room. When she came down the steps, Garry O’Connell stood in the middle of the floor with the lantern hanging from his hand. His head was a little bent, as if he were standing by a grave. The light shone on a flagstone deeply cut with two interlaced triangles.

  “Hic jacet—Susan,” he said. And then all of a sudden he let the lantern fall with a jangling crash and threw himself down over the stone, calling aloud, “Susan—Susan—Susan!”

  The lantern rocked and steadied. The light still shone. From the other side of the stone there came the sound of knocking. Mrs. Bowyer spoke in a deep harsh voice which she did not know for her own:

  “Open that stone! Open it at once!”

  The knocking ceased. Another sound took its place—the muffled, hollow sound of someone shouting in a confined space.

  Mrs. Bowyer put a commanding hand upon Garry’s shoulder.

  “Now, my lad, look sharp!” she said. “There’s no sense in calling through a stone. You look a bit lively and open what’s got to be opened.”

  Garry O’Connell lifted his head with a jerk, looked her in the face, and sprang up. With a sort of convulsive energy he struck the wall with his hand and drove with his right foot against the sign that was cut upon the turning stone. The stone turned, tilted, showed a black square, and Mrs. Bowyer, picking up the lantern and looking, as she herself would have said, “down over,” saw the light strike on Anthony Colstone’s upturned face. What she really saw first were his eyes, unnaturally light because his forehead and cheeks were as black as a sweep’s.

  She said, “Lord, ha’ mercy!” and then, in a sharpened voice, “Where’s my maid?”

  As Anthony stooped, his voice started an echo.

  “She’s faint. Get out of the way, and I’ll lift her up.”

  Then he raised himself with Susan in his arms. Her eyes were open, and the tears were running down her cheeks. When her head came above the opening, she drew in her breath with a gasp and caught at the edge of the stone to hold herself up. Her eyes passed in blank surprise from Gran, with the lantern in her hand, to Garry, still thrusting at the wall as if his arm were rigid and he unconscious of it.

  Mrs. Bowyer saw their eyes meet and Susan shrink away. She frowned and issued another order.

  “Anthony ’d best come up first. Put her down, lad, and come you up.”

  “Yes,” said Susan shuddering—“yes.” She let go of the stone and slipped back into the darkness.

  Garry O’Connell laughed. A sound of whispering came up from below. Then Anthony Colstone swung himself up and clambered out of the hole. He had far more the appearance of being the villain of the piece than Garry, who leaned now against the wall, his smooth, pale face almost expressionless. There was just a hint of mockery in the set of the upper lip. Mrs. Bowyer, watching him with the same alert, compassionate gaze with which she would have watched a fevered child, saw the hand which hung at his side close and unclose continually.

  Anthony knelt and reached down for Susan. He took her under the arms, but when he had lifted her, he knew that it was not going to be easy to get her up alone. She was a dead weight. Her eyes were half closed, and her breath came in gasps. Garry’s face—and then to go down into the dark again.… She felt as if she was still going down, slipping down, down into a deep black well. Over her head Mrs. Bowyer spoke sharply:

  “You there, my lad, come and give a hand! The wall don’t need you to prop it. The maid’s fainting. Give him a hand.”

  Susan came back to consciousness to find herself leaning against Anthony’s shoulder, whilst Garry held her by the arm. She looked from one to the other, a puzzled, piteous look. And then, as Anthony’s arm closed about her, she burst into tears and hid her face against him.

  Garry let go of her and fell back a pace. His voice cut through the sound of her sobbing breaths:

  “It wasn’t he who saved you—it was I. What is he to you anyway—Susan?” Susan turned a little and looked at him with wet, frightened eyes. “What has he got to give you? I’ve given you everything. He’ll never give you half as much. I love you so much that I’d have killed you. He’ll never love you enough for that!”

  It was like a conversation in a nightmare. Susan stamped her foot.

  “I don’t want him to! Why don’t you go away?”

  “That’s enough, O’Connell!” said Anthony roughly. “We’ll get out of this.”

  “And bed and a drink of good hot milk is what she’ll be the better for,” observed Mrs. Bowyer. She made a determined move towards the door, and there made a pointed gesture to Garry to precede her.

  They came out through the old cellar door. Anthony stopped to lock it, and as he pocketed the key, Garry laughed again.

  “Yes,” said Anthony, “you’ve got a key too—haven’t you? I hadn’t forgotten that—I was just going to ask you to hand it over. The game’s up, O’Connell.”

  “Yes, the game’s up,” said Garry. He balanced the heavy key in the palm of his hand; it looked raw and new in the lantern light. He tossed it suddenly to Anthony. “The game’s up. But it wasn’t your game—it was mine. Perhaps you’ll be thinking of that later on. It was my g
ame, and I gave it away to Susan—not to you. You’d be under that stone for good and all if it wasn’t that I’d give Philip Colstone’s treasure a dozen times over for Susan—and that’s a thing she’ll not forget. And when she’s had her fill of stagnation, and her fill of being the squire’s wife, and her fill of your enlivening society, she’ll come, maybe, to wish in her heart that I’d left you there. And now”—he threw back his head and struck an attitude—“what are you going to do with me?”

  “See you out of the front door and bolt it behind you,” said Anthony.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Anthony drove home those bolts with a will. If Garry O’Connell ever came messing round here again, he’d get his face pushed in. If he had touched him to-night, he’d have killed him, the murdering, play-acting swab. He turned from the door to find Mrs. Bowyer at his elbow, Susan in the background, sitting on the bottom step of the stair with her head against the newel-post.

  “There’s two more in the housekeeper’s room,” said Mrs. Bowyer.

  Anthony’s jaw dropped.

  “In the—”

  Mrs. Bowyer nodded in a businesslike manner.

  “In the housekeeper’s room. I turned the key of the door upon them—both doors.”

  “Two of them!”

  “In a manner of speaking,” said Mrs. Bowyer.

  Anthony was turning towards the door again.

  “Then I suppose I’d better get Smithers. Lane’s no earthly.”

  Old Susan Bowyer’s hand was on his arm.

  “Well, lad, I shouldn’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Least said, soonest mended, my dear.”

  Anthony felt very much as if he had put a finger on an electric wire; the shock tingled all through him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’d best to come and see,” said Mrs. Bowyer. “And I’d take a poker or something along with me if I was you—there’s one in the libery that’ll settle him easy if he gives trouble.”

  She led the way. As Anthony passed Susan, he bent down and said in a low voice,

  “Are you all right, darling?”

  “Yes—quite. Where are you going?”

  “There’s someone in the housekeeper’s room. You stay here.”

  She pulled herself up at once.

  “Oh no, I must come too.”

  Mrs. Bowyer turned impatiently.

  “Come, or stay, but make haste about it or we’ll none of us get to bed to-night!”

  She went on through the baize door, still carrying the lantern.

  Anthony went to the library for the poker. It seemed strange to see the lamp burning there in the empty room. He hurried back to Susan with the feeling that she might be spirited away if he were to delay.

  As they came through the swing door, Mrs. Bowyer drew back the bolt and threw open the door of the housekeeper’s room. Anthony sprang forward, but she was already advancing into the room, holding the lantern high. The room had been dark. An extinguished lamp stood on the table. A man who had faced old Susan Bowyer as she came in had now wheeled about and stood with his back to the door. Perhaps he had expected Anthony when the bolt shot back. Perhaps he had thought that he could rush him and get away unknown. Sitting at the table, with her head buried in her hands and her face hidden, was a woman, dressed as Patience Pleydell was dressed in her portrait, in a blue petticoat and a flowered gown, and a cap that covered her hair.

  Mrs. Bowyer set the lantern down upon the chimney-piece, and there was a moment in which the silence weighed heavily on the five people who were in the room. Then, defiantly, the man flung round.

  It was Bernard West.

  Anthony stared at him. The silence went on. Bernard West broke it.

  “Well, I suppose you’re surprised.”

  “Good Lord!” said Anthony. “Surprised? West!”

  “If you had ever accustomed yourself to think, you would not find it surprising at all.”

  “Look here, West—”

  “None of your family ever have thought, as far as I can make out. They were given a clue over three hundred years ago, a clue which any intelligent schoolboy could have unravelled in half an hour, and during the whole of that time I don’t suppose any of them ever so much as looked at it. I only wonder that the book survived. And are you going seriously to advance the theory that three hundred years of stupefied ignorance entitles the family to something which they never did an honest day’s work for?”

  “I don’t know that I was going to advance a theory at all,” said Anthony drily.

  Mr. West snorted.

  “On what theory, or what notion of ethics, do you base any claim? Your Philip Colstone was, on your own showing, nothing in the world but a high-class pirate. Whatever it was he got, I suppose you’re not going to contend that he came by it honestly?”

  Anthony began to wonder if he was lightheaded.

  “I’m not contending anything,” he murmured.

  Mr. West hit the table.

  “He took it by robbery and murder, and he got what he deserved! And where’s your claim to what he hadn’t the shadow of an honest claim to?”

  “Aren’t you assuming a good deal? Anyhow I don’t quite see where you come in.”

  “He come in,” said Mrs. Bowyer, “along of his grandfather that he’s the spit and image of, the one they called Jew like I told you—that’s how he come in, and just such another interfering piece of goods, to listen to him. The grandfather he come down here at Sir Jervis’ bidding, and sick, sore and sorry he was about it when it was too late.”

  Bernard West struck the table again.

  “My grandfather would have made Sir Jervis’ fortune if he hadn’t been so infernally pigheaded!”

  “You mean he found coal on the estate,” said Anthony.

  The woman who was sitting at the table lifted her head. Miss Arabel’s little ravaged face was turned towards Anthony. She had been crying for the last half hour. The tears kept running down as she spoke in a weak, choked voice.

  “Papa never thought about anyone but himself. He never thought about us. He didn’t care if my heart was broken. He sent John away. He found the coal, and Papa sent him away. There would have been plenty of money for us all. Papa would have been a very rich man. He only thought about himself.”

  “Cousin Arabel!” said Anthony, in horrified tones.

  Miss Arabel felt for her pocket handkerchief, and failing to find it, sniffed helplessly.

  “I ought to have had my share. Bernard said I should have my share—he and the other young man. They said it was only fair.”

  “What did you want it for?” said Anthony. This was rather horrible.

  “I wanted to travel,” said Miss Arabel. “I wanted to travel and see the world—I always did. And we never went anywhere—we never went anywhere at all. Agatha didn’t mind, but I wanted to go to San Francisco—and Rio—and NovaZembla—and—and—Japan—and Tasmania—and the Fortunate Islands. But Papa only thought about himself.” She sniffed piteously and said in a whispering voice, “I can’t find my pocket handkerchief.”

  Susan knelt at her side.

  “Here’s one. Don’t cry. You shall travel if you want to—only do stop crying.”

  “I pulled back the bolts and let them in,” said Miss Arabel, dabbing her eyes. “I came through the passage, and I pulled back the bolts—I had to climb on a chair. And I made myself a dress like the picture—I had to lock my door whilst I sewed at it. That was after I saw you in Agatha’s old dress which she gave to Susan Bowyer. You see, I thought—if anyone saw me—they’d think—” She broke off with a sob. “Anthony did see me once, and I hid in Susan Bowyer’s kitchen till he went away. Oh dear, oh dear, I shall never see any of those places now! I’m too old!”

  Susan patted her.

  “You’re not a bit too old. We’ll give you some of the treasure, and you shall travel all round the world.”

  Miss Arabel stopped crying with as much sudden
ness as if a tap had been turned.

  “You’re Robert’s granddaughter,” she said. Her voice had sharpened.

  Mrs. Bowyer had come up to the table. She leaned on it with both hands and fixed her black eyes on Miss Arabel’s tear-stained face.

  “Ha’ done with Robert’s granddaughter!” she said, in a strong, forcible voice. “She’s no more Robert’s granddaughter than she’s yours. Robert never had no granddaughter. She’s Ralph Colstone’s daughter, and Philip Colstone’s granddaughter. She’s just so much a Colstone as you are, my dear—and Anthony Colstone’s promised wife into the bargain.”

  Miss Arabel looked sharply from one to the other. Then she pressed Susan’s hand.

  “Did you find anything down there? Will he give me my share? I ought to have my share, you know. Papa wasn’t fair to us.”

  Anthony did not catch the words. He saw Susan whispering something back. He saw old Mrs. Bowyer straighten herself up with a sardonic smile. He spok, with an effort to Bernard West:

  “I think you’d better get out. O’Connell’s gone.”

  Mr. West actually appeared aggrieved. As he preceded Anthony to the front door, he delivered an aggressive lecture on the subject of brains versus an obsolete law of inheritance. He was still talking when he stepped into the street.

  Anthony was moved to sudden laughter. What a colossal nerve! What a colossal gasbag! You caught the fellow red-handed in a burglary and he lectured you on the ethics of property! He heard himself shouting with laughter.

  “You’re too damned long-winded, West,” he said. “I can put it in a sentence—a talk in a tabloid, and a good old English proverb at that—‘Findings is keepings.’ Only, unfortunately for you, I’ve done the finding, and I’m going to do the keeping.”